There are a variety of methods for commercial high speed printing to produce large quantities of print material, such as books, magazines, newsprints, and brochures. In the past, traditional analog printers, such as web fed offset and gravure contact printers, were the most common type of printers for such commercial applications. In recent years, digital web fed high speed inkjet non-contact printers have become more prevalent due to 100% variable print content and multi-color printing at a relatively low cost to consumers.
While paper media typically used for more traditional analog printers can perform somewhat acceptably on high speed web fed inkjet (non-contact) printing devices, such paper media are subject to problems relating to one or more of cockle, curl, wrinkle, crease, and misregistration and other similar problems, which can detrimentally impact productivity, product quality, and cost. For example, inkjet printing has a much higher moisture level than offset and gravure printing due to the colored pigments of the inkjet ink being applied to the paper media using a generally water based liquid vehicle, which will cause non-uniform hygro-expansion that appears to be related to cockle/waviness and misregistration issues. Cockle refers to a small scale expansion in paper fiber width when wetted with water, for example from water-based inkjet inks.
As such, research and development of media continue to be sought.
Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments illustrated, and specific language will be used herein to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the technology is thereby intended.